NGOs fear rise in human trafficking in the post-lockdown period, says study

Srishti Shankar, INN/Delhi, @shankar_srishti

“Whilst the death toll and infection rate continues to be at surge. The increase in the number of crime rates continues to haunt the nation”- survey reports.

Child trafficking along with people getting into debt bondage is at the verge of its insurgent growth. About 85 per cent of all respondent NGOs felt that school dropouts are likely to increase in the post-lockdown period. India being left downtrodden due to the prevailing economic crises has been showing its adverse effects where parents are not even left with an opportunity to decide for their child’s education. 

Education being at stake, children belonging to the marginalised-rural sector become vulnerable to child-labour, abuse and trafficking.“Seventy-six per cent of the NGOs anticipate human trafficking for the purpose of sexual abuse and child trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation to see an upsurge post the lockdown,”.

 Various governmental setups have been trying to implement measures in order to keep the situation afloat without having us fear about the future of unprivileged children of our society. 

The study has been conducted by the Kailash Satyarthi Children Foundation which states that “there is a very high likelihood” of an increase in human trafficking in the post-lockdown period for the purpose of labour.

About 93 per cent NGOs said the families will soon run out of money and 85 per cent believed they may not even get enough food in a day to fill their bellies, the study said.

In India, where thousands of people die of hunger every year. The situation which the pandemic has imposed upon us has made our marginalised-sectors extremely vulnerable to such ever prevailing atrocities. The governmental schemes continue to embark improvement through various schemes such as- providing Payout to 8.69 crore farmers under PM-KISAN. Wages under MGNREGA have been hiked to Rs 202 from Rs 182(which would mean an additional Rs 2,000 to every worker).

But, there are still certain laws which need to be implemented in order to provide help to children belonging to the unprivileged class of our society. 

Out of all those households who reported having food shortage during the lockdown (176 out of 245), 43 per cent said it was ‘severe’ (exhausted all food reserves but managing to get daily meals), while 10 per cent said it was ‘very severe’ (exhausted all food reserves/do not have anything to eat) and for another 13 per cent, it was ‘somewhat severe’ (exhausted all food reserves at some point of time but managed to refill), the study pointed out.

“We anticipate that trafficking is going to be one of the biggest threats post-pandemic for the most vulnerable. The children of families who have lost their means of livelihood and are facing hunger and starvation are extremely susceptible to all forms of exploitation, including trafficking. We strongly recommend through our report that a wide safety net (must) be spread in source areas of trafficking to protect children from being trafficked,” said Rakesh Senger, Executive Director, Kailash Satyarthi Children’s Foundation.